The Urban Land Institute, or ULI, is a nonprofit research and education organization with offices in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, and London. Its stated mission is "to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide".[1] ULI advocates progressive development, conducting research, and education in topics such as sustainability, smart growth, compact development, place making, and workforce housing.

The ULI was founded in 1936 and currently has more than 34,000 members. More than 20% of the members work in government, academia, or public-private partnerships. Most of the rest are involved in the real estate and urban development industries.

ULI states that it produces publications and regular research "that anticipates emerging land use trends and issues, proposing creative solutions based on that research" and "imparts knowledge to help the development community continuously improve its performance."[2]

ULI also maintains a number of initiatives and programs, including a respected advisory services program that provides government, businesses, and nonprofits with strategic advice on real estate development and urban policy issues. For more than 20 years, ULI has assembled a Real Estate School,[3] designed to provide professional development skills to land use practitioners. ULI also hosts regular events, including local district council meetings,[4] its annual Fall Meeting,[5] and Spring Council Forum.[6]

The organization's current president and CEO, Patrick Phillips, is the former president of ERA AECOM. He replaced Richard Rosan, who served as the organization's president and CEO for 17 years.[7] ULI employs several research vice presidents, including executive vice president and chief content officer, Kathleen B. Carey (formerly of GE Capital Real Estate);[8] executive vice president of strategic communication, Lela Agnew (formerly of the Historic Charleston Foundation);[9] executive director of the Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use, Jess Zimbabwe (formerly of the American Architectural Foundation);[10] executive vice president of district councils, Marilee Utter (current president of Citiventure Associates, LLC);[11] executive director of the Center for Sustainability, Sarene Marshall (formerly of The Nature Conservancy);[12] and executive director of the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing, Stockton Williams.[13]

ULI's Europe office is led by chief executive Lisette van Doorn, who previously worked for LIRE and CBRE Global Investors.[14] In addition, John Fitzgerald is the chief executive of ULI's Asia Pacific office located in Hong Kong.[15]

ULI was founded during the Great Depression on December 14, 1936 as the National Real Estate Foundation for Practical Research and Education, with the attention of becoming a research and education college in real estate and "urbiculture." In 1939 the organization changed its name to the Urban Land Institute, two years after establishing its headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. In 1940, an internal bulletin stated the institute's mission as having "been established to assist American cities in their problems of planning, replanning, construction, and reconstruction."

ULI held its first conference in 1941, hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. A year later, ULI established itself as an advocacy organization with the publication of "Outline for a Legislative Program to Rebuild Our Cities." That same year, the institute relocated its headquarters to Washington, DC.

In 1944, members J.C. Nichols and Hugh Potter would organize ULI's first council, the Community Builder's Council, focusing on suburban building issues facing post-World War II American cities. The institute's advisory services program was established in 1947, conducting its first panel for the city of Louisville, Kentucky.[16]

The 1950s would be marked with the establishment of the J.C. Nichols Foundation (which would later evolve into the ULI Foundation) as well as the institute's first shopping center costs study.

ULI would continue to move towards becoming a more research-focused institution during the 1960s, establishing its first research program in 1960. The institute would conduct a number of multiyear comparative land use studies and begin spreading their influence abroad by holding it its first international meeting for sustaining members in Mexico City in 1965. Two years later, in 1967, the Community Builder's Council hosted ULI's first European study tour.

The 1970s would be a decade of expansion and growth for the organization. The Urban Land Research Foundation (later called the ULI Foundation) is created to "help meet the rising need for an expanding more accessible body of development information." ULI membership increased to over 6,000 by 1947 and its annual budget grew to more than $1.5 million in 1976. In 1979, ULI expanded its number of councils along and established the ULI Awards for Excellence program.[17]

ULI created its regional council program in 1983, starting with only seven councils in various U.S. cities. Later the institute created district councils and held its first Real Estate School in 1986.

UrbanPlan, the institute's second high school program is created with the help of a grant award from the National Geographic Society Education Foundation. In 1992 the institute created its first two European district councils for the cities of London and Barcelona.

The ULI Senior Resident Fellows program is established in 1996. That same year, the first ULI Mayor's Forum is held with the intention of creating a venue for city officials and the private sector to meet and seek solutions to urban problems.[18]

In 2000, the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development is established and the number of ULI councils grows to 39, expanding to Europe, Asia, and South America. A year later, in 2001, ULI opened its first European office in Brussels, Belgium. That same year, the first Young Leaders group is established by the ULI Houston district council. A majority of the other district councils have a Young Leaders group by 2005.

The European office relocated to London and founded the Community Action Grant program in 2004. In 2007, the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing was created in addition to the opening of a ULI office in Hong Kong. By the 2008, ULI membership would exceed 40,000. That same year, ULI created the ULI Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use along with the launch of the Urban Investment Network in Europe.[19] In 2011, the National Building Museum announced ULI as the 2012 Honor Award recipient for its years of dedication to leadership in urban planning and developing sustainable communities. According to the museum's executive director, Chase Rynd, the museum selected ULI due to their "longstanding commitment to multi-disciplinary, nonpartisan research that impacts the built environment" and its role as a "leading voice for smart growth and for strategies that go beyond bricks and mortar to enhance the quality of life in the world’s urban communities.”[20]

In 2014, ULI and the National League of Cities entered a partnership to jointly guide the direction and operations of the Rose Center for Public Leadership, helping expand its work and influence to a wider audience of city officials.[21]

Through its many programs, ULI has influenced policy and practice for decades. The institute does not lobby, but instead works with its members and conducts research in order to identify land use and urban development challenges. According to a 2005 issue of the Journal of Association Leadership, ULI "taps into the experience and expertise of its members to advance real estate development practice and to change the urban landscape using many of the principles identified in The Wisdom of Crowds to solve problems — cognition, cooperation, and coordination problems." With a membership representing "26 disciplines and 13 industry sectors, working in the public interest and private enterprise, the institute documents best practice by aggregating members’ collective wisdom and structures communities of practice as self-organizing systems."[22]

Since the middle of the 20th century, ULI has been hired by city governments and private land owners as consultants to tackling local real estate and development problems. These multidisciplinary teams - consisting of members with expertise in architecture, urban planning, transportation consulting, finance, and market trends - have had many of their recommendations adopted or implemented.[23][24] The institute's local district councils, have provided events for government officials and private industry leaders to deliberate about future land use challenges and have also established an UrbanPlan classroom-based curriculum that been widely adopted by schools across the United States.[25][26][27] In addition, ULI has taken part in a number of partnerships in order to provide leadership and awareness in urban development practices, including one with the World Economic Forum (WEF).[28]

ULI’s Advisory Services program brings together experienced real estate and land use professionals to develop innovative solutions for complex land use and real estate development projects, programs, and policies. Since 1947, over 600 panels have been completed in 47 U.S. states, 12 countries, and 4 continents.[29] During this time, the panels have helped sponsors find creative, practical solutions for issues such as downtown redevelopment, land management, development potential, growth management, community revitalization, brownfields redevelopment, military base reuse, workforce and affordable housing, and asset management. Panels have also provided expert and objective advice in the wake of natural and man-made disasters such as hurricanes,flood, infrastructure failures and tornados and acts of terrorism.

Some noteworthy ULI panels include its recommendations for redeveloping a four-mile stretch of downtown Los Angeles into a CleanTech Corridor[30] and its advice on how to revitalize Denver’s 16th Street Mall.[31] ULI's panels have also offered consultant work for post-catastrophic redevelopment, including the 2007 I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota[32] as well as advise to officials on how to rebuild Lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.[33]

There has been controversy over a few of the panel's recommendations, including its 2005 post-Hurricane Katrina advice for rebuilding New Orleans.[34][35]The Nation's Mike Davis said that the recommendations "reframed the historic elite desire to shrink the city's socioeconomic footprint of black poverty (and black political power) as a crusade to reduce its physical footprint to contours commensurate with public safety and a fiscally viable urban infrastructure."[36] Others have praised panels' recommendations, seeing them as possessing a "crystal ball," as reported by the Oklahoman when looking back at the advisory report issued just months after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.[37]

The Terwilliger Center for Housing is a project of the Urban Land Institute made to increase production of affordable rate, workforce housing for people living near centers of employment. It was founded with a $5 million donation from Ron Terwilliger, former chairman of Trammell Crow Residential.[38] The Center has produced a number of reports which look at the availability of affordable housing as well as the combined transportation and housing costs of individual U.S. metro areas. The Center has produced reports for San Francisco,[39][40] Washington, D.C.,[41][42] and Boston.[43][44]

The Rose Center, now jointly operated by the National League of Cities, seeks to fosters excellence in land use decision making by providing public officials with the resources needed to create sustainable and efficient land use policies. The Center was founded in 2008 after a $5 million start-up grant from Daniel Rose, chairman of New York-based Rose Associates.[45] The Rose Center has yearlong fellowship program. Every years, the Rose Center names four mayors to its annual class of Rose Center Fellows. Each mayor selects three local land use leaders who serve as advisers on that mayor's team. Past fellows have included Kansas City Mayor Sly James, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert.[46][47]

In 2009 the institute founded the ULI Center for Capital Markets and Real Estate. According to ULI, the mission is “to promote understanding of the real estate capital markets and provide leadership in fostering a healthy and productive real estate capital markets sector.”[48] The center hosts an annual capital markets and real estate conference, where it convenes industry practitioners, experts and economists for two days of panel sessions.[49][50] The center also publishes a semiannual Real Estate Consensus Forecast that is often cited in financial news publications.[51][52][53] In addition, since its founding, the center has assumed responsibility for partnering with PricewaterhouseCoopers to publish its annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate report.[54][55]

The Center for Sustainability was created in 2014 as an effort to influencing builders to design healthy, resilient, and energy efficient developments. The Center includes the ULI Greenprint Center for Building Performance and the Urban Resilience Program.[56]

In 2012 the Greenprint Foundation transferred their activities and assets to ULI, creating the ULI Greenprint Center for Building Performance. With the merger, the new entity hopes to facilitate the reduced use of greenhouse gas emissions in the global real estate industry.[57][58][59] The center is best known for its annual Greenprint Performance Report, a tool used by the center's members to assess their own relative progress in reducing emissions. The report uses the Greenprint Carbon Index, and is intended to provide a verifiable, transparency tool for building owners to use in benchmarking their portfolios. The center's membership has included companies such as AvalonBay; GE Capital Real Estate; GLL Real Estate Partners; Grosvenor; Hines; Jones Lang LaSalle; Prologis; Prudential Real Estate Investors; and TIAA-CREF.[60]

UrbanPlan is a reality-based educational initiative of ULI, which originated with its San Francisco chapter. It was developed in partnership with high school economics teachers, land use and real estate professionals, and the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics (FCREUE) at the University of California at Berkeley.[61] The core of the curriculum involves the hypothetical scenario where students respond to a proposal to convert a particular local neighborhood into a mixed-used development. Through role play exercises of the concerned citizen and developer, and the presentation of their proposals to a mock city council made up of volunteer local real estate professionals, students learn the major issues in the urban planning process and how the desires of many stakeholders influence development decisions. Since its launch, over 27,000 high school and university students have participated in the UrbanPlan program. In 2014, the program was introduced in the United Kingdom through a partnership with the Investment Property Forum Educational Trust.[62][63][64][65][66]

According to their website, the "ULI Awards for Excellence define the standard for real estate development practice worldwide." Founded in 1978, the awards program is the centerpiece of ULI’s efforts to identify and promote best practices in all types of real estate development. The ULI Awards for Excellence program honors development projects in three regions: the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Each region has its own jury, schedule, and fees. Winners from each competition go on to compete in the Global Awards for Excellence competition.[72]

The ULI Urban Open Space Award is an annual prize that recognizes one outstanding example of an urban public open space that has both enriched the local character and revitalized its surrounding community.[73] The award program was established in 2009, after that year's ULI J.C. Nichols Prize winner, Amanda Burden, donated her $100,000 prize back to ULI for the creation of the Award.[74] Detroit’s Campus Martius Park was the inaugural winner of the Award, receiving a $10,000 cash prize.[75]

The ULI Jack Kemp Workforce Housing Models of Excellence Award honors developers who demonstrate both leadership and creativity in expanding the availability of workforce housing in the United States.[76] The awards program was established by the ULI Terwilliger Center in 2008 under the original name, the ULI/J. Ronald Terwilliger Workforce Housing Models of Excellence Awards. It was later renamed in tribute to Jack Kemp.[77]

The ULI/Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, started in 2003, gives graduate-level students the opportunity to compete for a $50,000 prize. To enter, a team must be composed of students from at least three disciplines. Each year, a real, large-scale site is selected. Student teams then have two weeks to craft a comprehensive design and development plan for that site. After finalists are narrowed, the jury of interdisciplinary experts in architecture and land use then selects a winning team.[78] Previous finalists have included student teams from the University of Pennsylvania,[79] the University of California Berkeley,[80]Columbia University and a joint team from North Carolina State University and UNC-Chapel Hill.[81]

In addition to an Annual Report,[82] the Urban Land Institute publishes books, reports, and magazines from its own research as well as members within the organization.[83] Along with its flagship magazine, Urban Land, other notable publications have included The Community Builders Handbook, Emerging Trends in Real Estate, The Homeowners Association Handbook, Advisory Service Panel reports and their annual Infrastructure report.[84]

The Urban Land Institute first began publishing its flagship magazine, Urban Land, in 1941. Currently, the magazine prints six editions per calendar year and is made available only to the institute's membership. It publishes articles on a variety of land use and commercial real estate topics affecting industry professionals.[85] Over the years, the institute has published other limited-run magazine titles, including Multifamily Trends and Urban Land Green.[86] In 2010, the institute launched an online version of Urban Land magazine.[87]

Currently, there are two annually produced Urban Land Institute research reports. The Emerging Trends in Real Estate® series, which was started in 1979, was originally produced by the Real Estate Research Corporation. In 2004, the Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse Coopers took over publication of the report. The report has received much attention in the media and is viewed as the industry's premier annual forecast for real estate finance, development trends, and capital markets.[88][89][90] Each year, there are three reports produced for three different regions: the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe.[91]

In addition, the Urban Land Institute Infrastructure Initiative publishes an annual infrastructure report. Since 2007, with the support of Ernst & Young, the Urban Land Institute has produced an annual report that highlights trends and issues on a range of infrastructure topics.[92] Since the first issue of the report in 2007, the Infrastructure report receives considerable coverage in both the national and local media.[93][94][95][96]

Since its founding, ULI has published numerous books on land use issues. In the early decades of the institute, ULI's Technical Bulletin Series made up the majority of its publications. The first issue of the series, Mistakes We Have Made in Community Development, by J.C. Nichols was published in 1945.[97] A few years later, in 1947, The Community Builders Handbook was published. The New York Times listed it as one the year's top books in planning and real estate.[98]

Throughout the years of the institute, ULI has produced other noteworthy publications including The City Fights Back (1954), The Dollars & Cents of Shopping Centers series (first published in 1961) and The Homes Association Handbook (1964).[99] Recent publications have included Professional Real Estate Development: The ULI Guide to Business (2003), Real Estate Development: Principles and Process (2007), Growing Cooler (2008), Real Estate Market Analysis: Methods and Case Studies (2009), and Build to Rent: A Best Practice Guide (2014).[100]

ULI is organized as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and governed by a set of bylaws. According to ULI's website, the organization is led by staff and member volunteers, while its business and operations are under the direction of its global chairman, chief executive officer, trustees, board of directors, and an operating committee.[101]

Since ULI is a global organization with members geographically located in various regions, major cities, and metropolitan areas, the organization provides forums at the local level. ULI refers to its local chapters as national and district councils.[102] The local district councils host networking events, conferences, technical advisory panels, and awards programs for the area's members.[103][104] In addition to these local councils, ULI have more than 50 product councils. These are cadres of ULI members, capped at 50 members each, where council members participate in closed-door information exchanges and the sharing of best practices in their specialized industry. Membership in product councils is a highly sought-after distinction and restricted to the organization's full members.[105]

Each year, ULI holds a number of industry events open to both members and non-members. Two major annual ULI events are the Spring and Fall Meetings, which are held in various host cities across North America. Both of these events, which attract a variety of private and public land use professionals, have become known to feature a number of high level speakers. Notable past ULI keynote speakers include former President Bill Clinton, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, actor Robert Redford, NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, and former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.[106][107][108][109][110]